


New Places, New Faces

by proudlygoingnowhere



Series: Beyond the Garden Wall [1]
Category: Sing Street (2016)
Genre: Angst?, I'm not sure what other tags need to be here at the moment, M/M, Sing Street - Freeform, present day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-10-08 13:25:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10387617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/proudlygoingnowhere/pseuds/proudlygoingnowhere
Summary: Conor's gap year in a new house on the far side of town takes an interesting turn when he meets his sardonic and mysterious next-door neigbor.





	

**Author's Note:**

> New series, maybe? Enjoy :)

"There you go, I think that's everything."

Conor Lawlor looked up from his daze at his older sister, who was unloading the last cardboard box from her minivan.

  
"All of your belongings are in your hands now. Literally," she continued, giving him a pat on the shoulder.

"Thanks for all the help, Ann," Conor said, grabbing the box and setting it down on the front porch of his new house.

Originally, Conor had not planned to take a gap year before starting college, but by the time his high school graduation had rolled around, he still had no idea how what he wanted to study, so he had no choice but to take a year out from school to sort his life out. Conor had also originally planned on staying with his parents during this time, but at the beginning of May his mother fell critically ill and his father became too depressed to wrap his head around anything, so he spent the months leading up to September scraping up enough money to rent himself a place on the far side (which, frankly, was the sketchier side) of town.

And now here he was standing at the base of a one-bed, one-bath condominium whose exterior looked like it hadn't been polished up since God knows when. The front yard was barely a yard at all, with only a couple shrubs and a deteriorating bird bath atop dry, yellow grass. For the next nine months, at least, this was home.

"You sure you're gonna be alright?" Ann asked. "You're not even the least big nervous or anything?"

" 'Course I'm nervous," Conor said uncomfortably. "I've never lived by myself before." He sighed. "I wish I could live with you."

Ann gave him a sympathetic smile. ""Con, you know you can't. I wish you could, too, but Cian and I don't have the space or the resources." Cian was Ann's boyfriend. They were such a tight couple that Conor was convinced that they'd been engaged ever since they had first met.

"Yeah, I know," Conor said, staring at his shoes. "Well, I should get this stuff inside. Better start getting things unboxed while there's still daylight."

Ann nodded. "I can help you drag these boxes in, if you want."

Twenty minutes later, all of Conor's belongings were in his house, waiting to be unloaded.

Ann peeked at her watch. "Ah shit, I've got to go," she exclaimed, heading for the door. "I've got class to attend in twenty minutes, and Professor Thomas does  _not_ like it when we're late." Ann was a senior at the city Community College, studying English Language and Linguistics. Conor aspired to be like her someday - a successful student who was top of his class, who was favored by teachers and received generous extensions for assignments. Unfortunately, until he figured out exactly where he wanted his life to go, he had to put those aspirations on hold.

"Alright, see you." Conor waved as his sister hopped into her car and sped away, leaving him standing in the doorway of the house, surrounded by an eerie silence.

__

After a couple minutes of debating what to do next, Conor finally decided to explore the house. He started by making his way slowly through the empty living room, moving into the unfurnished dining room and kitchen, and finally up three creaking steps that led to the bathroom and bedroom, Conor peered into the bathroom first, expecting to maybe find something mildly interesting, but nothing caught his eye. The only thing even the tiniest bit interesting was a little brown spider in the sink, which he quickly sent flying down the drain with one switch of the tap.

Conor moved on to the bedroom, which was so dark that he had to pull out his phone flashlight in order to find the lightswitch. When he did, he flicked it on, filling the room with a prison-like yellow light that was accompanied by a low humming noise. The walls were a sad blue-grey hue, and on the opposite wall was a small window that was too high up to look out of properly. Conor's eyes fell to the middle of the room, where there was a queen-sized wooden bedframe with an off-white mattress that looked like it had been slept on only once, at the most. Against the wall that was shared with the bathroom, there was a set of dark brown drawers, and next across from the drawers was a bare clothes closet. There was no bedside table, or extra form of lighting, or carpet. It was essentially a prison cell, and Conor shivered at the mere thought of it.

Last of all was the backyard, which turned out to be a little less drab than the rest of the house. There was a bed of wildflowers that were in full bloom over in one corner, and a working fountain in the other, near the back door. Where his portion of the yard ended, there was a tall brick wall separating his property from his next-door neighbor's.

Curiosity took the better of Conor, and before he could process what he was doing, he started to climb the wall, interested in what lay on the other side of it. When he reached the top, he swung his legs over and perched on the bricks, looking over the most depressing backyard he had seen in his whole life. Conor didn't know exactly what he'd expected, but it was definitely not this. Where he had pictured bright green grass, the grass was straight-up brown and only grew in scattered patches; in place of a bird bath or maybe a magnolia bush was a pile of dirt, with not a hint of a plant growing out of it. Even the back of the neighbor's house was depressing - it was painted jet-black, and not a single light was on inside. God only knew who the owner of this  _wreck_ was... it was probably some tired old widowed guy who had no motivation to do anything and just stayed in his attic, watching the tele --

"Hey, what the hell are you doing?" someone shouted, startling Conor so much that he fell forwards and into enemy territory. He landed on his stomach with a thump, the wind knocked out of him completely. "Ow..."

"Yeah, I can imagine that hurt," the stranger said, kneeling in front of his face. Conor tilted his head up to see not an old man, but rather quite a young one who was very attractive and probably around his own age. The stranger wore a black jean jacket and a dark grey beanie, and his eyes squinted with suspicion behind a pair of wire-rimmed aviator glasses. "There's a wall for a  _reason_ , dumbass." His expression was so full of resentment that Conor was sure he was considering killing him on the spot.

"Geez, take it easy, I'm not here to bother you," Conor said quickly, struggling to his feet. "I was just curious about who lived here, is all."

The stranger cocked his head. "So you're the new neighbor I've been hearing about." It was a statement, not a question.

"Y-yeah," Conor stammered. This guy was starting to really freak him out. "That's me. I think. And I'm assuming  _you're_ my next-door neighbor."

"Got that right," the stranger replied, starting to head back inside. He suddenly turned around and said, "Just so you know, I'm loud almost every night, so if you're bothered by it, don't expect me to apologize." When he saw that Conor was still standing in his yard, completely shocked, he added, "We're done now. You can  _go._ "

"O-okay," Conor said. "Just...  _how_ loud are you?"

His neighbor threw up his hands in exasperation. "I don't  _know_ , I'm loud."

Conor smirked. "What do you get up to that makes so much noise?" 

"I listen to music," the other boy replied, rolling his eyes. "What else would I be doing?" With that, he walked into his house and slammed the door behind him.

Conor went back to his condominium and began to unpack and arrange his belongings. By the time dinnertime rolled around, almost everything had been freed from their boxes and put in their appropriate spots in the house. He ordered Chinese takeout, and sat on his rickety front porch, eating and staring at the sunset. Every now and then, he couldn't help but glance at Mystery Boy's house, wondering what the hell went on in the guy's life. Conor had met plenty of rude people in his life, but he had an inkling that his new neighbor would be slightly different. No matter what, if they kept having uncomfortable encounters like the one they had this afternoon, there was no way Conor was going to survive it here.

He could only hope that things would get better.

 


End file.
